Amd Volcanic Islands details

[Tao~]

I don't know why people are reviewing these cards - a simple link to the 2 year old 7970 review would have been sufficient (though haven't seen anyone do that, probably they did copy-paste )
Also, there are no GE bundles with this ? 7970GE + 3 games is better than this rebranded crap , no ?

[[XC] Oj101]

Meh, after some more benchmarks the 290X isn't looking as impressive. The larger the pool used for the aggregate score, the poorer the 290X is looking. In quite a few cases it's slower than a STOCK GTX 780. I should've stuck to the original four scores, it was looking better

It's definitely going to have to come in at no more than $499 to sell to anyone other than those curious to try it out and die-hard fanboys. For anyone else, unless they're very specific about the applications and choose those which favour the AMD, there's little to no reason to buy one at a price point higher than $499. Ah well

[boxleitnerb]

Meh, after some more benchmarks the 290X isn't looking as impressive. The larger the pool used for the aggregate score, the poorer the 290X is looking. In quite a few cases it's slower than a STOCK GTX 780. I should've stuck to the original four scores, it was looking better

It's definitely going to have to come in at no more than $499 to sell to anyone other than those curious to try it out and die-hard fanboys. For anyone else, unless they're very specific about the applications and choose those which favour the AMD, there's little to no reason to buy one at a price point higher than $499. Ah well

Hard to imagine with 2816 SPs, more ROPs, better frontend and 900+ MHz clocks (at least that's what I expect). What are the actual clocks of your card under prolongued operation (not just short benchmark bursts) without changing any powertune settings?

[radier]

Also, there are no GE bundles with this ? 7970GE + 3 games is better than this rebranded crap , no ?

I was wondering about that too. Everyone are so quiet about Never Settle program.

[s1nykuL]

Meh, after some more benchmarks the 290X isn't looking as impressive. The larger the pool used for the aggregate score, the poorer the 290X is looking. In quite a few cases it's slower than a STOCK GTX 780. I should've stuck to the original four scores, it was looking better

It's definitely going to have to come in at no more than $499 to sell to anyone other than those curious to try it out and die-hard fanboys. For anyone else, unless they're very specific about the applications and choose those which favour the AMD, there's little to no reason to buy one at a price point higher than $499. Ah well

I agree, It seems the 290x will offer little more than 20% over a stock 7970GE. For me this is not an upgrade I can justify from a financial view point. I call 20% a minor upgrade
I will let the dust settle and consider the 280x to crossfire with the Lightning I have.

It looks very much to me that AMD has followed Nvidia in releasing a "new" card with the same arch as the old card and a few extra SP and larger bus width, calling it "new" and then re-branding the rest.

It is done this way to give the appearance of a "new" graphics card range, when in all reality nothing is new at all.
Those of us who pay attention notice this but not everyone pays attention. And that is what AMD and Nvidia hope for.
Touting minor performance increases as new to encourage upgrades and sell more cards, shame on both Nvidia and AMD
However, I don't expect them to commit commercial suicide by saying "only 20%" faster than the previous single chip flagship card"

[[XC] Oj101]

20 %? Now where'd you get that number?

[s1nykuL]

Just a guess from looking at the specs. Perhaps my guess is wrong. All I see so far is 280X approx = 7970. Based on a quick and not considered in detail thought I came up with 20%

How quicker or slower than than the 7970 would you expect the 290X to be? ;-)

666 posts

[Dainas]

I don't know why people are reviewing these cards - a simple link to the 2 year old 7970 review would have been sufficient (though haven't seen anyone do that, probably they did copy-paste )
Also, there are no GE bundles with this ? 7970GE + 3 games is better than this rebranded crap , no ?

perhaps because there have been massive improvement in driver performance, and at $300 they are a massive value. Many are completely oblivious to how good Tahiti was and still is, moreso given how cheap it is.

[paulbagz]

AMD claiming 2.6x scaling with 3 cards, that's impressive if true.

-PB

[boxleitnerb]

But it's nothing new. With proper settings, 3 cards scale very well today:
http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulle...80&postcount=6
http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulle...83&postcount=7

[vario]

Well, taking into account shaders number and clock difference it should be roughly 32% faster than 7970 Ghz edition (if teh base clock of R290X is 850Mhz,things get muddy here however because it has bigger boost uplift, so it may spent longer times at boost or somewhat in the middle).
It would be somewhat in line with the firestrike scores AMD provided, which showed 6500 for R280X (which is slightly slower than GHZ ed) and somewhat above 8000 for R290X.To expect a lot more or less would be foolish.

@ [XC] Oj101

Should we expect Hawaii LE in next week or is it in distant future ?

[tajoh111]

perhaps because there have been massive improvement in driver performance, and at $300 they are a massive value. Many are completely oblivious to how good Tahiti was and still is, moreso given how cheap it is.

Drivers have come a long way, but the biggest change has been AMD stacking the deck in reviews. I was looking at some of the 280x reviews and man has the testing suite changed for some reviews, for example anandtech, has 6 out of 9 games tested being gaming evolved titles.

The former Nvidia marketing guy that now works for AMD, has had a pretty big impact for AMD. Possibly even more of an impact than their engineering team. Because of anandtechs new gaming review suite, I could see another 10-15 percent added compared to their earlier benching suite.

[[XC] Oj101]

I can't comment on launch dates, sometimes I'm sure not even AMD is too sure It's difficult for me to give the precise ratio between the 780 and 290X due to slight platform differences between the two test systems and the 780 being tested with older drivers, but I'll settle for between 5 % faster and 5 % slower than a 780 OC. In some cases the 290X pulls a relatively nice lead over the 780 OC, in a few it sits a bit behind a reference 780.

As I said, the price will have to be right. The $729.99 seen on Newegg is too much, the performance doesn't justify a premium over the 780. The 780 OC being faster than a stock TITAN and the 290X bring so close to the 780 pretty much puts the nails in the coffin for the TITAN, though.

People should stop comparing ANYTHING to the TITAN, with a high price, low margins to AIB partners and very tight control as to what can and can't be done, most AIBs have 780s which are both faster and cheaper than the TITAN.

[N19h7m4r3]

Which power connections does the 290x, and 290 use?
6+8pin for both?

[Lanek]

Which power connections does the 290x, and 290 use?
6+8pin for both?

surely yes.. they are certainly same PCB and identical outside the number of SP and clock speed.

[informal]

If numbers that [XC] Oj101 lists are true(+-5% Vs 780 OC), then 290x will be ~2% faster than Titan on average according to techpowerup. Or we could say it will be basically equivalent to Titan since 2% is meaningless difference. If AMD wants to make this card a hit, this (awesome) performance has to come with a lower than 780 OC pricing. Titan will be obsolete ( or better to say it already is with 780/780 OC on the market), AMD just needs to put a final nail in the coffin with aggressive pricing structure and great bundles.

[Lanek]

I can't comment on launch dates, sometimes I'm sure not even AMD is too sure It's difficult for me to give the precise ratio between the 780 and 290X due to slight platform differences between the two test systems and the 780 being tested with older drivers, but I'll settle for between 5 % faster and 5 % slower than a 780 OC. In some cases the 290X pulls a relatively nice lead over the 780 OC, in a few it sits a bit behind a reference 780.

As I said, the price will have to be right. The $729.99 seen on Newegg is too much, the performance doesn't justify a premium over the 780. The 780 OC being faster than a stock TITAN and the 290X bring so close to the 780 pretty much puts the nails in the coffin for the TITAN, though.

People should stop comparing ANYTHING to the TITAN, with a high price, low margins to AIB partners and very tight control as to what can and can't be done, most AIBs have 780s which are both faster and cheaper than the TITAN.

There should be quickly 290x OC too.. When it come to Nvidia vs AMD in games ( or bench ) you will allways find some games who was allready a lot faster on AMD gpu, and some who was allready a lot of faster on Nvidia cards.., There you cant change this things, I dont expect something different of what we have seen on past. This can come from games developpement choice and sometimes it just a particularity / balance of the architecture who work just better in a case or the other.

Im even curious to see what some can bring with a bit faster memory and a 100mhz clock increase, less TDP limit and better PWM.

[kam03]

64 ROPs confirmed!

[Stukov]

I don't know why people are reviewing these cards - a simple link to the 2 year old 7970 review would have been sufficient (though haven't seen anyone do that, probably they did copy-paste )
Also, there are no GE bundles with this ? 7970GE + 3 games is better than this rebranded crap , no ?

TBH, both AMD and Nvidia's cards perform way different than they did 2 years ago, and the 280x does perform differently than both the 7970 and the GE. While it isn't very exciting and it is a re-branding, it does at least show were both AMD/Nvidia's cards perform against each other within different market brackets.

Also from what I read the R9/7 series dont have the game bundles because AMD wants to clear out the 7000 series stock, and once they diminish, the R9/7 series will get the bundles. I also assume the R9 290 will receive them since there is no inventory to worry about. I know it isn't very exciting as we all want to read about the 290.

[[XC] Oj101]

Don't hold your breath for a 290X OC...

[kromosto]

64 ROPs confirmed!

this just what i wanted to see.

[kromosto]

also it is strange that how people react on this same performance with old generation thing. we have these level card nearly every new gen where mid range performs approximately same with old gens high end cards but why people complaining about it more now? i think it is because of order. generally the order was first show people the best performing one then the others, people won't bother mid range much but ati made the order reverse this time and i believe this made the current situation like this.

[N19h7m4r3]

also it is strange that how people react on this same performance with old generation thing. we have these level card nearly every new gen where mid range performs approximately same with old gens high end cards but why people complaining about it more now? i think it is because of order. generally the order was first show people the best performing one then the others, people won't bother mid range much but ati made the order reverse this time and i believe this made the current situation like this.

Personally my complaint is that they weren't able to improve/reduce power consumption. I would have hoped after nearly two years they'd have been able to improve the 7xxx/280 series in those regards.

[kromosto]

Personally my complaint is that they weren't able to improve/reduce power consumption. I would have hoped after nearly two years they'd have been able to improve the 7xxx/280 series in those regards.

i can't argue on that. i have some ideas on it but they are just speculations of course.

[[XC] Oj101]

also it is strange that how people react on this same performance with old generation thing. we have these level card nearly every new gen where mid range performs approximately same with old gens high end cards but why people complaining about it more now? i think it is because of order. generally the order was first show people the best performing one then the others, people won't bother mid range much but ati made the order reverse this time and i believe this made the current situation like this.

It's slightly different this time. Take a 7970 GE, slap a new sticker on it and you have a 280X. Older drivers even detect the 280X as a 7970.